Still not in Kansas anymore

I wrote about a time when I thought the “honeymoon period” of cultural adjustment was over. Well, I can attest now- now it is REALLY over. I’m no longer the naïve, clueless, innocent foreigner who makes everyone laugh because she’s totally out of her element. I can speak Bambara for the most part, and when a woman calls me over to see if I can pound millet, they are almost disappointed to see that I know what I‘m doing. (which is why I usually pretend that every time I pound millet is my first time and that they are teaching me something new.) And my village is my daily habitat- I’ve figured out how it works generally, and coming from a time where I would make a new discovery every day, Dombila’s novelty has worn off.
Even so, after being in my village for 6 months, and in Mali for 8, there are still things about the culture that surprise me. There are still discoveries- and though more and more rare, are more and more appreciated.
The other day, I was sitting with Sali and Awa and they were making fun of me for how early I go to sleep. They said “But Aminata, when the skinny cows march, you have to stay up really late. They don’t start until 10 and it goes until like 1 in the morning.”
“The skinny cows?”
“Yeah, in Bamako, the skinny cows march down the road every year.”
“Do you go to see them?” -Me
“Oh no. But everyone comes to the health center and we watch it on TV.”- Sali
“Oooo! I’m so excited!”- Awa
Apparently they pick 11 skinny cows. Yes 11- no more and no less. And the march down the street, and they get weighed one by one. “Some of them are like less than 50 kilos!” They then are herded to a big trowl to eat. Oh, and I forgot to mention, they all wear dresses and jewelry and such. Awa and Sali then gave me their best impressions of the skinny primped cows marching down the street. And for some reason, I found this to be about the funniest concept ever. It’s their Macy’s parade.
“You’ll stay up to watch it with us right?”
“Sure,” I say, “When is it?”
“Oh… next December.”
And that, my friends, is about the speed of life in Mali. It’s February and we’re already excited about a TV special in December. Mark your calendars guys.

But then there were the night wails. Culture from the deep, deep brush. I started noticing things- children wearing cola nuts around their necks to protect them from genies, people talking about the fires of the fields and the places you were not supposed to go to at night. And as I was reading the other night, I heard loud cries in the distance, forced, wild bellows- not from a goat or donkey as the norm, but from a human. Each followed by the hard slapping of a goat skin drum. Whispers and fear swept the tiny village at night, “Aminata, get inside your house!” What, why? My whole family rolled up their mats, blew out the lantern and hurried behind the curtains of their mud hut. A bit bewildered, a was approached by my host dad. “It’s the elders. They are out calling the spirits. They put on white clothes and wander set fires in the brush.”
“Do they hurt people?”
“No, they are the elders. They don’t hurt people, but if you see the ritual, you will die.”
“Why do they do it.”
“Culture” he responded.
So I obeyed and took my book inside of my hut. As the hot season is rolling in, it gets harder and harder to stay inside with the thick air. But I lay on my mattress with my flashlight, feeling perfectly secure and comforted despite the hustle in my neighbors. I listened to the cries of the wilderness imagining the voices of centuries and centuries of Malian ancestors echoing through the night-piercing cries. How cool, I thought, that I am hearing the heart of it.